1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a drive roller controller for an accumulating conveyor system, and more particularly to a drive roller controller for an accumulating conveyor system that is easily and conveniently combined to the accumulating conveyor system.
2. Description of Related Art
With reference to FIG. 6, a conventional accumulating conveyor system (50) is consisted of multiple accumulating conveyor units (51) and the accumulating conveyor units (51) are connected in serial. Each accumulating conveyor unit (51) has a frame (52), at least one drive roller (60), multiple idler rollers (61) and at least one controller (70).
The drive roller (60) and idler rollers (61) are parallelly and rotatably mounted on the frame (52). The drive roller (60) has a motor (not shown) therein, so the drive roller (60) is driven to rotate relative to the frame (52). Since the adjacent rollers (60, 61) are respectively connected by a belt (63), the idler rollers (61) are driven by the drive roller (60). The controller (70) is mounted outside the frame (52) and electronically connected to the motor of the corresponding drive roller (60). Therefore, the controller (70) controls the motor to rotate the active roller (60) and then the idler rollers (61) are driven by the rotating active roller (60).
When the accumulating conveyor system is constituted by the multiple accumulating conveyor units, the controllers of the accumulating conveyor units are electronically connected. Each controller responses the present status of the corresponding accumulating conveyor unit to other controllers. When goods are now on the first accumulating conveyor unit of the accumulating conveyor system, the first controller obtains the present status of the second controller of the second accumulating conveyor unit. If the first controller determines the status of the second accumulating conveyor unit is normal, the first and second controllers respectively controls the motors of the drive roller controllers to rotate. The goods on the first accumulating conveyor unit will be delivered to the second accumulating conveyor unit. The controllers of the accumulating conveyor system continually repeat the same actions to deliver goods to a specific accumulating conveyor unit or the last accumulating conveyor unit.
In general, one accumulating conveyor unit requires one active roller. However, some accumulating conveyor units are slanted to match the uneven landform and the slanted accumulating conveyor unit requires two or more active rollers to provide large enough force to deliver goods thereon. In this case, an installer has to use different controller to control the motors of the active rollers of the slanted accumulating conveyor unit. Therefore, the accumulating conveyor system installer has to prepare different controllers to consist the accumulating conveyor system, and the installing steps are complex.
With further reference to FIG. 7, the controller has connecting ports to connect to the corresponding connecting port of the adjacent controller. The conventional controller has a casing and the connecting ports are formed on a front face of the casing. When wires are plugged into the connecting ports of the two adjacent connector, the wires are protruded from outside the frame. With reference to FIG. 6, the operators impurposely touch the wires when they are walking or moving the goods on the accumulating conveyor system. Therefore, the wires are easily dropped from the connecting port of the controller.
To overcome the shortcomings, the present invention provides a drive roller controller for accumulating conveyor system to mitigate or obviate the aforementioned problems.